Several months ago, I wrote about how we’d be taking our son, Miles, on his first transatlantic trip, coinciding with his second birthday. While I won’t be writing a full trip report (sorry, it’s hard to document everything when you’re carrying 17 bags and have someone yelling “no no” at everything), I did want to share some general thoughts on our experience. 😉
In this post, I’ll be covering our outbound journey, which was a mess and a half. Yet oddly when we landed at our destination, we let out a sigh of relief, and were actually kind of happy about how the whole thing went.
In this post:
Basics of our son’s first trip to Europe
Our son turned two back in early August. Prior to that, we had done a fair bit of short haul travel with him, but hadn’t yet taken him on a long haul trip. Ford and I are lucky that we both work from home, so we get to spend way more time with our son than most people who have to go to an office. Then for the situations where we traveled long haul, our family loved being able to spend time with him, as it was very special for everyone.
Frankly up until recently, we didn’t think Miles would actually get anything out of long haul travel. I mean, when you have an infant, they’re more interested in trying to put their fingers in every outlet in a new environment, and won’t take away a whole lot from a trip, in my opinion.
However, as he gets older, we struggle more with being apart from him, so like taking him along. Furthermore, we figured we had to rip the band-aid off, and finally take a long haul trip with him, just to see how it is.
With that in mind, we took Miles to Greece for his first trip, as we were visiting some friends there. The outbound portion was shortly before his second birthday, while the return was just after his second birthday (which is interesting as well, since he could be a lap infant on the way out, but not on the return).
Since we were traveling with family, we ended up needing five seats. As you may have guessed, finding five business class award seats in late July to Greece isn’t super easy. So I ticketed the best thing I could find, which was American business class from Miami to Madrid, for 62,000 AAdvantage miles per person. We ended up booking Miles his own seat, since our hope was that him having a business class seat would allow him to just pass out for the entire flight (“hope” is the operative word here).
There was no award availability from Madrid to Athens, so we ended up booking cash tickets on Iberia in business class, which were reasonably priced. Tickets were $300 per person, only about $75 more than economy. But we could also book just four tickets on this flight, and have Miles travel as a lap infant, since intra-Europe business class consists of economy seats with a blocked middle (so he could sit between us in the blocked middle seat).
Our messy trip from Miami to Madrid to Athens
To be honest, I was dreading the outbound portion of our trip, and was expecting the worst. I was probably in my head a bit too much. I of course get that people on planes don’t love screaming toddlers, and I was determined to do everything possible to prevent that.
Well, what I hadn’t factored in is that we’d just have one of those awful travel days, where most things go wrong, unrelated to our son. Let me explain…
A good start at the Flagship Lounge Miami
Our trip started off on a good note. After checking more bags than I care to admit and heading through security, we visited the American Flagship Lounge, and we were excited. I’ll let Miles’ facial expression speak for itself. Nothing can stop us now… oh, wait…
Uh oh, here comes a rolling delay…
Literally a minute after sitting down in the Flagship Lounge — it was almost comical — I got a push notification from the American app that our flight was delayed by 75 minutes. I thought “okay, great, we have a five hour layover, so this will just make that easier, and Miles will be more likely to sleep onboard.”
At first, Miles enjoyed the plane spotting, and the fabulous American Airlines catering (he highly recommends the cookies and bread).
Then I looked up the reason for the delay, and saw that it was listed as being due to crew availability. Well, I mean, surely it can’t be that hard to find another crew member at a hub, right? I went to speak to a representative in the Flagship Lounge, to get more of a sense of what was going on.
According to her, we were missing a “flight engineer” (that’s how you know she’s an old school employee!), but they were working on finding a replacement.
What followed was the most textbook American delay handling imaginable, where there was simply no information, and the flight just kept getting pushed back by 15 minutes at a time. On multiple occasions we thought we were going to board, based on the information provided in the Flagship Lounge, so we even headed down to the gate. At the gate, the gate agents simply said “they don’t tell us anything” (and they didn’t even make any announcements, but rather that was the response when going up to the podium).
15 minutes at a time, our delay stretched from 75 minutes, to two hours, to three hours, to four hours, and beyond. Grrr! We finally eventually started boarding a little after 7PM, and we ended up departing at 7:40PM, 4hr25min behind schedule (too bad EU261 compensation only applies on US airlines when originating in Europe).
Look, these kinds of delays aren’t fun for anyone. But they’re especially not fun when you’re traveling with a toddler, and they’re even more stress-inducing when you’re booked on two separate tickets in Europe, and you’re going to misconnect. Unlike in the United States, airlines in Europe also generally don’t rebook you on another flight at no cost. Grrr…
A sleepless(ish) flight across the Atlantic
My dream was that five minutes after takeoff, Miles would pass out for the entire eight hour journey, and only wake up shortly before landing. But I knew that wasn’t the likely outcome.
Every kid is different. Miles is an absolutely incredible sleeper at home. He sleeps 12 hours per night without exception, and he literally hasn’t woken us up in over a year with screaming in the middle of the night. Not once.
However, when he’s not in his crib at home, it’s a totally different story. He. Refuses. To. Sleep. Not in his car seat. Not in his stroller. Unfortunately this flight wasn’t really an exception. I had booked him a seat in hopes of him using it, but he absolutely wasn’t interested in sleeping on his own (by the way, reverse herringbone seats are obviously pretty bad for families — I was hoping our flight would get American’s “other” business class seats).
He wasn’t tired at first, so he got some screen time, which kept him entertained, since it’s a novelty for him, and he doesn’t get much of it at home.
Eventually he agreed to sleep, but only if he was in someone’s arms. He did end up sleeping… for maybe a few hours. It was better than nothing, but a far cry from what we had (unrealistically) hoped.
A silver lining during our Madrid layover
We had checked bags on this trip, and American doesn’t let you check bags through on separate tickets, even if you’re traveling on a joint venture partner. So we knew we were going to misconnect, since our flight arrived at 10:15AM, and our connection was at 11AM.
That’s not enough time to clear passport control, pick up bags, check bags in again, and make a connection.
The other thing about Europe is that airlines don’t offer much flexibility if you miss your flight, so you’ll typically be asked to just buy a new ticket if you miss your flight. Of course we were taking some risk with our itinerary, but that’s also why I planned a five hour layover in Madrid, which should’ve greatly limited our risk.
So we arrived at the Iberia check-in counter shortly before 11AM, and the agent said there was nothing he could do, and he directed us to the ticket sale desk. Fair enough, but FML. I had seen that economy on the next flight was sold out, and that business class tickets cost over $1,000 each. I was obviously not thrilled at the prospect of this, and was prepared to try to figure out some other creative plan (which is of course all the more complicated when a toddler is involved).
The two parties at the ticket sales desk in front of us both left without booking tickets, after they heard the cost. I tried to be on my best and nicest behavior — gosh, I don’t remember the last time I’ve approached someone with such over-the-top reverence. I told my best sob story, and after doing some typing, he said “I have good and bad news.”
I was expecting the good news to be that he can rebook us the same day, and the bad news to be that it would cost us thousands of dollars. But nope, our lucky stars aligned, and that’s not how it played out. “The good news is I can rebook you today, but the bad news is that the flight is only at 3PM.”
“That sounds great to us, thank you so much!” I was expecting the next stage of our interaction to be for him to ask for some huge fare difference. But nope, a minute later he printed out our five boarding passes, and said “have a nice flight.” As we walked away from the counter, I almost expected him to still say “wait, I have to charge you.” But nope, we were good to go!
Suffice it to say that this turned around our mood for the better. Sure, we had a really long day, but at least we’d get to our destination without spending an arm and a leg.
A decent layover, and VERY long flight to Athens
We had around three hours in Madrid before our connection to Athens, so we spent that time in the Iberia Lounge, which worked out smoothly. Toddlers are pretty resilient, as long as they’re well fed and entertained. So we took turns entertaining him, from playing games with him, to walking around the terminal with him.
I’ve gotta say, I really appreciate when lounges have high chairs. That was something that was missing in the Flagship Lounge Miami, but that Iberia had, and that made the layover so much easier.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the journey was the last segment, from Madrid to Athens. The flight was around three hours, but honestly, it might as well have been from Singapore to New York, based on how long it felt.
At first we could keep him entertained with some TV shows. But then he started saying “no Cocola!” Oy, you know you’re in trouble when your toddler isn’t interested in Cocomelon anymore.
Miles then decided that he absolutely wasn’t going to just stay seated, and then he sort of became a worm, and tried to wiggle his way out of his seat and our arms. Soon enough he gave in to the temptation to sleep. Even though I imagine this was really uncomfortable for Ford, we were overjoyed at the sight.
We finally landed in Athens nearly 24 hours after we left our home in Miami, and gosh did we breathe a sigh of relief…
A cruel joke to finish off our journey
As we deplaned in Athens I refreshed my email, only to find a message from Iberia, telling us that one of our bags hadn’t arrived on our flight. My first thought was “please don’t let it be the bag with Miles’ stuff.” I referenced the bag tag number, looked it up, and… yes, it was the bag with all of Miles’ stuff.
I started filling out the form while we were standing at baggage claim. Eventually bags came out, and to my surprise, all of our luggage had made it. So our frustration there quickly turned to joy.
Our conclusion from our outbound journey
By the time we arrived at our hotel in Athens for the evening, we were overjoyed. The journey would’ve been exhausting without the delay of over four hours, the misconnect, etc. But we truly walked away from this saying “that actually worked out pretty well.”
I mean, Miles usually sleeps 12 hours per night, and in this case he traveled for nearly 24 hours, and maybe got a few hours of sleep. We were super exhausted by the time we arrived in Athens, so I can only imagine how tired he was. But still, it’s a great reflection of how flexible toddlers are, despite them having such a strong will.
Funny enough, once we were actually on the ground in Europe, the trip couldn’t have gone more smoothly. He had no jet lag, and he definitely took something away from the experience. Of course when you’re two years old, you’re not fully absorbing what you’re seeing, but we noticed changes with him when we returned from the trip, because obviously he was challenged a bit, going so far out of his daily routine.
For that matter, this trip really made him like water for the first time. He had taken swimming lessons at home, but was terrified of water. Meanwhile we rented a house in Greece with a pool that had a gradual entry, and he has had an interest in the water ever since (more on that rental in a separate post, as I booked it through Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy).
Bottom line
Long haul travel can be exhausting under the best of circumstances. So I’ve gotta say, this trip gave me a whole new appreciation for how simple travel is when you’re not traveling with young ones.
Our outbound journey was way more complicated than I was hoping for, thanks to a rolling delay of over four hours and a misconnect. But when we arrived in Athens and Miles was finally asleep, we felt a sense of happiness about the whole thing, and were very happy about our decision.
I just can't get over that his name is "Miles" (hey, at least it's not "Points"). ;-)
Glad that the journey went well, and thank you so much for sharing the trip report!
Your son is the cutest, he looks so much like you. Looks like he has good tamper as well.
My boy is 2.5 years old now, and I still didn't had the courage to fly with him.
I'm going to venture that the experience was not so delightful for all the folks around listening to toddler noises...
What a gorgeous wee boy Ben! He looks cheeky as anything! That would have been quite an adventure taking him on that trip.
I think we’ve all got our horror stories about taking the kids away long haul! Fortunately this wasn’t one…
We’ve also all got one of those photos like the one of Ford holding Miles fast asleep on the plane.
Please keep up with the updates on Miles. Loving watching him grow up as we have no little kiddos in our lives as yet.
I am sorry business class is not the place for children. People who have paid their hard earned cash for a bed do not want their sleep interupted but children not matter how loverly they may be. My last long haul flight was was 17 hours with a screaming baby and a disruptive toddler. The poor Emirates crew inundated with complaints and run out of earplugs.
He is ADORABLE!!
Impressed that you guys called that a success!
I, as the parent, would have melted down ;)
We are doing a zero connections long haul with our 3 year old for Xmas and I am already dreading it.
Ps. I still can't believe you named him Miles, but I suppose Points would have been too far!
I love this so much! Thanks for sharing!
Ben, this is only related in the most tangential of ways, but as a fellow child of immigrants who grew up in the US speaking their parents language I'm curious to know. Do you speak to Miles in German or otherwise try to teach him the language? Also, does he have German citizenship like you?
Use an AirTag+TilePro tracker in your checked-in luggage and at least on arrival you would know where the important stuff may be and make plans based on that.
While most dread the idea of having a bag with important stuff go missing while it’s needed for a trip, pretty much everything you need for the season for even a toddler is available in the capital city of a country such as Greece. It won’t be...
Use an AirTag+TilePro tracker in your checked-in luggage and at least on arrival you would know where the important stuff may be and make plans based on that.
While most dread the idea of having a bag with important stuff go missing while it’s needed for a trip, pretty much everything you need for the season for even a toddler is available in the capital city of a country such as Greece. It won’t be fun to have to do runs for clothes, possibly diapers, and then the other stuff a kid may need on vacation, but it is do-able. If the stuff is unlikely to be easily purchased at the trip destination, then probably best to take it as carry-on if possible.
To this day and after many miles flown myself, witnessing someone's joy & excitement when flying for the first time makes me quite happy. Doesn't matter whether is a child, a teenager or an adult, seeing their happiness makes my day.
It won’t be so many more years until your son will be of the same age as when you started out on Flyertalk. How time flies. I am sort of surprised you waited until your son was two years old to fly on an international long-haul flight. When you first mentioned a baby was on the way, I had assumed it more likely that the trip reports for a U2 child on long-haul international flights would have come well before your child would be close to 2 years of age.
As a fellow parent who has also flown long haul with toddlers you should give them melatonin and benadryl right as they board the flight so they won't struggle to sleep in an unfamiliar environment
also for under 2 its better to book 1 J seat and have them as a lap child so they can sleep next to you
We also don't use melatonin at home but do use it on planes. Just test out both the melatonin and benadryl BEFORE you fly - some minority of kids have the opposite reaction and it makes them super hyper!
Ben, I loved your description of toddlers as being resilient. I think we're conditioned to not think of them that way, but they really are. Here's to many more adventures showing Miles the world!
I agree with other posters that flat bed seats don't seem especially convenient for small children, and that PY seems to make more sense in these circumstances. What I do find bizarre though is that you didn't try calling/WhatsApping Iberia to flag up the likelihood of missing connection before becoming a no-show due to the delay.
Great review - looking forward to hearing about the inbound!
Shouldn't fly with a baby in biz class
Get yourself some noise cancelling headphones- problem solved
I'd happily choose to fly with babies over drunk adults in business class.
Longtime fan of your site and love the article. But for the love of god, fix the ads implementation. It’s so buggy and causes the page to blank out, freeze, etc. almost like it’s 2005. Makes it hard to finish an article.
You are much braver than me! When we looked at a summer vacation, with two kids who are 1 and 3 we literally ruled out anything that wasn't a direct flight. While in the future we'd be open to a connection, I don't think I'd ever risk separate tickets that might leave us stranded in a foreign country. That would be one adventure I wouldn't want to take! :) glad it all worked out though,...
You are much braver than me! When we looked at a summer vacation, with two kids who are 1 and 3 we literally ruled out anything that wasn't a direct flight. While in the future we'd be open to a connection, I don't think I'd ever risk separate tickets that might leave us stranded in a foreign country. That would be one adventure I wouldn't want to take! :) glad it all worked out though, and my goodness Miles is growing fast!
PS. I'll happily trade you a couple sleepless flights If my kids would give me a year of 12 hour night sleeps with no interruptions! :)
Didn’t you say that you were getting AirTags?
Yes, but as you can see, Miles made it just fine. /s
Next time, distribute Miles' stuff across all your bags. That way, if one gets lost or delayed, you have backups. My family tries to do this, with varying degrees of success, with our clothes when we travel together and have to check bags. (We aren't always successful because the day or two before a big trip is always a bit stressful and no one wants to repack bags at the last minute.)
Good suggestion to consider splitting critical stuff across different bags, but if one bag goes missing, then it’s more likely that all the impacted passengers in the travel party are going to be sort of short on stuff and more likely to need to do some shopping. Not all bad, especially if you want the airline to pay for wardrobe additions — but it takes time to shop, and some people really dislike having to...
Good suggestion to consider splitting critical stuff across different bags, but if one bag goes missing, then it’s more likely that all the impacted passengers in the travel party are going to be sort of short on stuff and more likely to need to do some shopping. Not all bad, especially if you want the airline to pay for wardrobe additions — but it takes time to shop, and some people really dislike having to shop more times than minimally necessary and then possibly ending up with more clothes and accessories than they want.
I third the notion of splitting up items. When my speed skating friends fly to meets domestic and international, they split up the critical components so that if one bag goes missing, no one misses the competition. They may be skating on backup blades but they're still skating.
Miles is a big strapping lad for two years old. I'm glad he fared well. My son, who is about to turn 22, has been flying with...
I third the notion of splitting up items. When my speed skating friends fly to meets domestic and international, they split up the critical components so that if one bag goes missing, no one misses the competition. They may be skating on backup blades but they're still skating.
Miles is a big strapping lad for two years old. I'm glad he fared well. My son, who is about to turn 22, has been flying with me and/or my wife since he was a couple of months old. Never a fuss whether in coach or first/business. And now he has the flying bug like I do. I expect he'll exceed my 1.2 million miles flown.
Best of luck on future travels!
That is a fun story, and I'm glad it ended as well as it could. Thank you for sharing!
We just took my 3.5 y/o on his first transatlantic trip to BUD (BA in PE). It’s was like 90 percent fine but the other 10 was…not so fine. I cannot imagine a five hour rolling delay! I would’ve packed up and gone home and been like “let me try this tomorrow”
Cute story, thank you!
We’ve just booked our first long haul with our one year old to go and see his grandparents at Christmas. We picked premium economy over business because we couldn’t think of a way we could manage our very active toddler in most modern j seats. Its times like this I miss the Qantas shell seats or the rapidly disappearing old BA ones.
We just tried him out on a 4 hour train journey and...
We’ve just booked our first long haul with our one year old to go and see his grandparents at Christmas. We picked premium economy over business because we couldn’t think of a way we could manage our very active toddler in most modern j seats. Its times like this I miss the Qantas shell seats or the rapidly disappearing old BA ones.
We just tried him out on a 4 hour train journey and I can’t see him sleeping much.
Long layover in Tokyo so he can sleep in a bed. Wish us luck.
Also, lucky, I’m noticing the Air France babyzen yo-yo pushchair , we just have a plain red one so I’m a little jealous. Great piece of kit, the fact that it folds up and fits as hand luggage or on our cargo bike is a great feature.
I did want to ask - no car seat for miles. Airlines seem to be all over the place on this one. I presume you didn’t take one because you would need one when you got there.
I’m having the devil of a time getting our one ‘approved’ by JAL right now., they are insisting on either theirs or ours if they will approve it. I’d love to avoid the whole thing if I could....
I did want to ask - no car seat for miles. Airlines seem to be all over the place on this one. I presume you didn’t take one because you would need one when you got there.
I’m having the devil of a time getting our one ‘approved’ by JAL right now., they are insisting on either theirs or ours if they will approve it. I’d love to avoid the whole thing if I could. It’s not like it will help him sleep, we don’t own a car and we barely use it except for the odd rental or Uber, so he’s never had a chance to get used to it.
A post on car seats on planes would be good if you have any insights?
What counts is that you lived to tell the tale :) Gotta start them early.
So glad to hear the misconnect didn't result in you all being SOL.
If a bag has stuff that belongs to Miles, it’s “Miles’s bag.”
What a great trip report, exceeded only by these adorable pics of Miles! Congrats, you did it!
Babies/toddlers in business class? Hmmm....nobody is talking about that? It sounds like Miles was well behaved but I've had two business class flights (JFK-DOH and IST-IAD) recently with screaming babies in business class for 10+ hours. Not fun flights to put it mildly and even worse knowing I spent $6000/flight to have this sort of "entertainment". The industry really needs to address the issue in my opinion.
Issue is effectively addressed through airline policies including seat assignments after 2
If you're unhappy with that you're free to enjoy the comfort of your own home or start a competing airline.
If I was sitting in economy class and screaming nonstop for 10 hours, the crew would likely kick me off the plane and/or the pilot would divert so I could be arrested. If a baby does that in business class, that is completely fine and the parents/guardians have no accountability? Give me a break.
Wow. The ENTITLEMENT of some parents is so strong on this comment thread. We get it: YOUR kids are "angels" that can do NO WRONG and society/public at large will just have to deal with your little babies if you have to as well. Because what is suffering if everyone can't take part in it, airtight?
I imagine the baby was equally disappointed to have a $6000 seat near you
If you don’t have noise cancelling headphones by 2024, that’s on you
They paid for it same as you. You are not entitled to any special treatment.
He's not asking for a special treatment - he's not allowed to disturb others with noise, so why should parents be allowed to do that? It's them who is asking for a special treatment and waiving of the general rules.
I wholeheartedly agree with you T. Davis, and as for Eric: The First/Business Class area of the plane is not "public" nor is it meant for "everyone". The airlines advertise peace, comfort, and luxury. A screaming child, less attention due to the FA dealing with said child, or all of the other issue (smelly diapers for one, mess in the aisle, etc) are not that whatsoever. I'm glad Ben's kiddo was well behaved: that is...
I wholeheartedly agree with you T. Davis, and as for Eric: The First/Business Class area of the plane is not "public" nor is it meant for "everyone". The airlines advertise peace, comfort, and luxury. A screaming child, less attention due to the FA dealing with said child, or all of the other issue (smelly diapers for one, mess in the aisle, etc) are not that whatsoever. I'm glad Ben's kiddo was well behaved: that is not the norm. And airlines do need to address this in a better way than just you just telling us to "stay at home". If us high ticket cost payers actually "stayed at home" YOUR tickets as well your "little angels" would cost significantly more than "sAAver fare". Bet that.
It is in fact public as evidenced by the ability of the general public to purchase tickets and policies which do not restrict children from the cabin
Seek status or validation elsewhere
"The First/Business Class area of the plane is not "public" nor is it meant for "everyone"."
Well, yes it is. It's meant for everyone who buys a ticket. It's not some sort of exclusive members-only private club, much as you might want it to feel that way.
"...everyone who buys a ticket". Does a 6 month old baby buy a ticket for business class?
What airlines advertise is meaningless. They also advertise hot young flight attendants with all smiles tucking in passengers, meals fit for a Michelin starred restaurant, and passengers who are all fashionable jetsetters wearing suits and couture dresses who happily talk to their equally hip seatmates. Do you complain about all that advertising too?
What matters is what is put in the fine print on their contract, in which they don't even guarantee that the flight...
What airlines advertise is meaningless. They also advertise hot young flight attendants with all smiles tucking in passengers, meals fit for a Michelin starred restaurant, and passengers who are all fashionable jetsetters wearing suits and couture dresses who happily talk to their equally hip seatmates. Do you complain about all that advertising too?
What matters is what is put in the fine print on their contract, in which they don't even guarantee that the flight you paid for will operate as scheduled. So if you somehow believed their advertising, that's your problem, not the problem of people who purchase what they are entitled to purchase, and travel in whatever class their ticket allows them to.
LOL lune, what ads are you seeing? PanAm or Braniff from 1950? Episodes of MadMen or something? Airlines DO infact advertise comfort, rest, relaxation, space, and many other things tangible and not in 2024. They owe it to us all to at least try to deliver that. And people like you who don't hole them accountable in any way are helping them to steamroll over all passengers.
In that instance I just whack my Bose noise cancelling head phones on and get my iPad out and watch my downloaded YouTube content and ignore anything going on in the surrounding seats. Snorers in business class are just as bad as kids.
Why not premium economy with the toddler. Kind of a waste for him to have his own business class seat in a way....
Lucky is raising his child to be even more entitled than he is.
Probably an unnecessary comment on this forum. Have a good day Elad.
He worked his way into making his interest in miles and points into a business sufficient to make himself “entitled” as you see it.
All fortunate kids of supportive parents are sort of entitled. But what is the alternative, an orphanage for all kids?
As a parent of a young kid, my main thing about traveling in a premium cabin is how inconvenient it is for the parent. I know Lucky was hoping for the other plane, but I’d hate to be responsible for a toddler with this type of seat.
IMHO, accessing the child easily at this age is more important to a comfort.
Got to agree. Y or PY for me until my daughter (who is 3 in January) is a bit older purely as if she decided to undo her seat belt on the takeoff roll then I wouldn’t be able to see with most J configurations.
Remember, Ben bought 7,000,000 AA miles for $30K a few years ago when SimplyMiles started (like Gary and others did) - a charity donation that resulted in about 240 miles per dollar due to stacked bonuses. He has lots of miles to spend - 5 x 62K (J) is only 310K miles spend.
What a beautiful (and, happily, happy) story so lyrically told!
I figured in the end you would choose business class over premium economy. I still think PE is better traveling as 3 with a toddler. Oh should try it and review on the blog.
I'm sorry to be negative but I don't like seeing the little guy at the window like that. If he should fall backwards or try to turn away from you......
That glass looks to be at least a half-inch thick, built to survive hurricane winds. The little fellow was completely safe.
congrats Miles on your first transatlantic flight!!!!
And also congrats proud dads on keeping your cool during this rather challenging itinerary
hearts, hearts, hearts
As the childless one, I will point out Miles might not have qualified as a lap child on the way out because he turned two before the return trip (and it was the same ticket). Here's DL's policy:
"YOU WILL NEED TO PURCHASE A TICKET FOR YOUR CHILD IF YOU:
Have a child that is 2 years old or older
Have a child that turns 2 during the trip"
If he was using miles to buy the ticket I'm guessing he bought one way tickets rather than roundtrip. For most FF programs there's no discount to purchase round trips, and 2 one ways give you the flexibility of finding awards on two different airlines.
I commented not really about this trip, but to bring up a topic not well known.
What a great story. Miles is absolutely adorable. Your story brings back memories from all the times we took our kids to long trips. Although stressful, the memories you will have will be with you forever and wait until he grows up and you can share those memories with him. Keep doing mire trips with him and your won’t regret.
Ahh..the all familiar separate ticket connections! Shortest I've done: domestic-domestic (1.5hrs), domestic-international (4hrs), international-domestic (2hrs), but all in US at connection point. One idea if you have multiple people in your party is to pay a little more and book one person on a single ticket (if you don't have too many bags) so at least the bags go thru savings some time going landside and less number of tickets to rebook if there's misconnect.
Great post! I remember the feeling of "just go to sleep already!" Before you know it, it becomes "don't just sleep all day!"
Textbook example of why AA sucks. Passengers are potentially out of pocket for significant $$ because AA can’t staff a plane out of a hub. Also, that policy of not checking bags though on separate tickets is ridiculous, particularly when the second flight is on an alliance partner. I can’t count the number of times that other airlines have gladly checked bags though with a separate ticket. AA = Not My Problem Airlines.
Our first little one is a few months younger than Miles, so I’ve been looking forward to your trip reports with him so any tips and tricks. Funnily enough we took our little one on an international trip before you guys! We did YVR-AMS on KLM business class in the middle seats. It was challenging passing the toddler across the middle privacy divider. The trip was definitely worth the struggles in the air though.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the journey was the last segment, from Madrid to Miami. Perhaps, Athens?
If you want him to sleep on these long flights what you want are some melatonin gummies. The 1mg dose is plenty. You get to give him a yummy gummy and boom, 15 minutes later he’ll be fast asleep. It’s truly like magic. (Take this from a fellow German-American with 3 kids who has flown them to Europe at least once a year for the past 12 years. These things work. Great for car rides too!)
Miles is fortunate to have terrific parents! Enjoy every day :)
Sounds about par for the course with a kid that age and flying AA. ;)
Wait til he insists on walking the whole flight. It gets easier after that!
Gosh, has he really turned 2? I feel old, actually. Beautiful family but I’m gonna go have an existential crisis now
Halfway through the delayed American flight I expected everything to go downhill… but the kid’s a good sport, that’s for sure, and both his fathers know a thing or two about how to keep him happy. I was most surprised at the better-than-expected result at the Iberia counter, given how badly the inbound flight was delayed, and given how AA shirks any and all responsibility.
How’s the Korean/JAL trip going? No updates for quite a while!
@ VT-CIE -- Just getting started. I'll have my first live post about the trip tomorrow, so stay tuned! :-)
Someone doesn't get their own memo.
Instead of being so demanding, do as you say. Just go read something else then "visualise yourself flying Qsuites or Air France or JAL or something of that kind! ;)"
Ford is a lot more understanding than my wife would have been if I had booked two separate itineraries like this and ended up needing to collect the bags/misconnecting.
Glad it all ultimately worked out but what I have learned in the last year of having a little one is “keep it simple” when it comes to itineraries.
Sure I have flown more miles in Y this year just to have three across...
Ford is a lot more understanding than my wife would have been if I had booked two separate itineraries like this and ended up needing to collect the bags/misconnecting.
Glad it all ultimately worked out but what I have learned in the last year of having a little one is “keep it simple” when it comes to itineraries.
Sure I have flown more miles in Y this year just to have three across than I have in the last several years combined but wouldn’t trade it for all the extra memories of so many fun trips.
Your son is adorable
That look on Ford’s face.
It’s been a long time, but I remember exactly how that felt.
I noticed that too. The relief! Finally!
The old Top Gear TV presenters once compared a Maserati with a two year-old - very annoying to be around most of the time, but if someone tried to take it away from you, you'd kill them. That sums it up for me.
Glad the misconnect didn’t cost thousands! Very interesting to read such a different style review outta your blog
Curious if he also gets a German passport?
@ Mike O. -- He does qualify, and we're just finalizing that (Germany is kind of bureaucratic). :-)
Oh my goodness is he cute.
Glad you managed to make the best of a few curveballs.
I think you mean Athens rather than Miami here
"Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the journey was the last segment, from Madrid to Miami. The flight was around three hours, but honestly, it might as well have been from Singapore to New York, based on how long it felt."
Great report. You write that your flight from Madrid to Miami was three hours. I think uou meant Madrid to Athens
@ Jason -- Fixed, thanks! :-)